Crossing the border with Blue Jays beat reporter Jordan Bastian.

Game 111: Toronto at New York

Sorry for the delayed lineups, but Blue Jays announced shortly before the game that Alex Rios has been sent to the White Sox, who claimed him off waivers on Friday and will now assume his entire contract.

Just back from talking with GM J.P. Ricciardi and speaking briefly with Rios before he left the ballpark. More in a while…

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check this out from a white sox Blog:

Don’t get all riled up here, my fellow Sox fans. JP Riccardi’s the same guy that wouldn’t trade Halladay unless he got the moon in return, yet he’s pretty sure the guy’s going to leave via free agency. If Kenny Williams can actually pull off a waiver-line deal with this tightwad Riccardi, he should probably look into curing cancer right afterward.

Wow, awesome inning by League. It is time to move on. Maybe the Rios thing will motivate people. We already have an Overbay home run and are leading in the 8th at Yankee stadium. Mitre is done, but Towers…?

JP: “Chicago has always liked the player. I don’t think we really could come to an agreement on players prior to the [July 31] deadline.”
So they couldn’t agree on players prior to the deadline and JP caved and gave Williams what he wanted. Either that or JP is lying again, which wouldn’t be a surprise.

Having JP negotiate a deal with Kenny Williams is like having a first grader negotiate a stock sale to Warren Buffet. We need a guy like Williams.

Too funny , Riccardi said since WhiteSox were taking on Rios whole contract , they didn’t want to give up anything for him . Sox already gave up everything for Peavy . I am glad Riccardi didn’t use the same criteria to “trade” Halladay or Jays would have got squat for him

Since Snider was activated from the DL on July 2nd, he has accomplished the following, not including anything else he does tonight (37 games):
*Increase his BA from .235 to .316.
*Hit 12 doubles
*Hit 13 home runs
*Knock in 35 rbi’s

I think that is what they sent Snider down to do — find his swing. Maybe he has. What about using Lind in the outfield? He played left here in Syracuse. Seems too young to relegate to DH forever. Go Jays. Win over the Yankees – awesome!!!!

1) 20 more than Bautista has for the year in 69 games.
2) 8 more than Millar has for the year in 59 games.
3) 9 less than Overbay has for the year in 89 games.
4) 12 less than Wells has for the year in 107 games.
5) 11 less than Barajas has for the year in 88 games.

Snider’s 13 home runs in 37 games is compared to:

1) 1 less than Rios had for the year in 108 games.
2) 1 more than Wells has in 107 games.
3) 1 more than Overbay has in 89 games.
4) 7 more than Millar has in 59 games.
5) 3 more than Barajas has in 88 games.

Rios was okay, iffy, sporadic, unpredictable and not exactly personality plus. He missed easy fly balls, sometimes looked too relaxed, other times seems distracted, swung at strange pitches, and looked shocked when he missed. Who knows, maybe a new team can ignite his passion — the passion he certainly didn’t have in TO. I say bring up Snider, play Lind more. I’d watch a young, energetic team that smiles and loses over a bunch of rich, dull mediocre guys (aka Rios and Wells), any day of the week.

The link below provides a spreadsheet analysis of the Jays salary commitments both this year and going forward. In addition it shows what status a player is at, albeit it long term contract, arbitration or FA. Scott Rolen and Rios have not been taken off of this yet, nor has Edwin Encarnacion been put on. When those changes are made The Jays have a commitment payroll for 2010 of about $63,600,00, which is down, but not as far as it should be to provide the financial flexibility needed to compete, since a chunk of that is going to be needed to re-sign our young players and baseball economics have changed.

As, I’m sure everyone will note, the need to dump Wells and Overbay, especially Wells, is more urgent than it was yesterday.(particularly looking forward to 2011). Frankly, it’s too bad, Wells wasn’t traded yesterday instead of Rios, even if we had picked up 40 million of Wells contract, it’d be worth it.

25 year old Angel Sanchez, short stop for the Vegas 51’s appears to have caught some on the Snider/Dopirak disease recently which peaked last night with 2 doubles, a grand slam and 7 runs driven in.
All Angel has done is go 5 for 13 in his last 3 games with 2 doubles, 3 home runs and 12 rbi’s. Hitting .417 over the last 10 games his year numbers are now .315/.368/.452.

The question, of course, is this a new level of performance from Angel or just a career year?

One can hope the light has come on for Sanchez. After all, he was drafted as an 18 year old out of Puerto Rico, with no college ball, so it looks as if he might have taken some time to grow into his job. We may need him at SS next year if we can’t re-sign Scutaro.
I like to keep an eye on former Oriole’s pitcher, and Canadian, Adam Loewen’s progress in Dunedin. His average is now at .252 after climbing steadily all year, and he has hit .294 over his last 10 games with a HR and 5 RBI. He has had 278 out of the 1000 (approximate) at bats needed to turn him into a professional hitter, and so far, so good.

How about the fact Rios was on a team that wasn’t allowed to steal bases . Rios is better defensively , has more doubles and over their careers ( they are the same age ) the only thing Crawford has over Rios is stolen bases . Crawford played for a team/manager who allowed players to run . Rios had less that 2 mil coming to him this yr . If he had a decent yr ,which he is having compared to other right fielders , then why not let him finish out this year and trade him in the off season . Like I said they wouldn’t have let Crawford walk .

Crawford came up in 02 ,though only played 11 games , Rios in 04 either way Crawford has played a little over a year longer . Crawford is making 8.25 mil this yr with a 10 mil+ ( 1.5mil in escalators ) club option for next yr . Rios makes 5.9 mil this yr and 9.7 next year .

Randy Ruiz is called up and will be batting 6th as the DH tonight. (from JB’s tweeter). The story on Ruiz coming from the Blue Jays office 3-4 weeks ago was Ruiz hit low level AAA well, but seriously struggled against quality guys which is why he wasn’t called up previously to replace Millar.
So we will find out shortly whether the Jays lied 3-4 weeks ago or are lying now. With JP, I just consider everything coming out of his mouth is a lie, then I don’t get surprised.

Ruiz is hitting .320/.392/.584 for 114 games, has hit 43 doubles, 25 home runs and driven in 106 RBI’s. As a right handed bat, He’s hitting .260 against left handers, .337 against righties and .365 with risp. His slugging numbers are also better by about 100 points against righties,so although he hits right handed, he’s like a left handed bat.

Clearly the Jays do not want to call up Snider until after September 1st so they can maintain control on him for one more year. Although, it’s a good business decision to do that, I’m not sure its a good fan decision or maybe The Jays don’t care about fan attendance for the balance of August, it is hard to tell now a days.

The batting order of Ruiz-3rd, Snider-4th and Dopirak 5th has been extremely effective in Vegas. If Ruiz can handle MLB pitching, he could be a good candidate for the DH role for 2010. If he can handle it as well as he has AAA, then 2010 looks promising with Hill, Lind, Snider, Dopirak and Ruiz all capable of hitting .280-.300 with 30 home runs and 100 rbi’s.

I will put up with Snider not being here for another 3 weeks, because it’s not as if we were in a pennant race or anything. Given the amount of money he will be paid if he lives up to his promise, I for one would like to see him around for an extra year rather than lose him to free agency a year early, just so I could watch him in 3 weeks of exhibition games this August.

yerouttaheah
The problem Adam Loewen is going to have is there are others in the system either at Dunedin or lower levels who are already delivering far better numbers and are younger. Adam is already 25, playing in a 20-21 year old league and delivering mediocre numbers.
It appears we have a really fine group of outfielders in the system including Welinton Ramirez at Auburn, Johermyn Chavez and Brian D Van Kirk at Lansing in addition to Moises Sierra at Dunedin.
Sierra and Chavez at Lansing are the two corner fielders who look like they hold the most promise, at this point and are (I believe) the first prospects coming from the Jays DSL team.

yerouttaheah
True, but also remember the sooner we get all these kids up and playing here, coached here and mentored here, the sooner we compete. If Snider performs, we’d likely give them a Hill type contract any way, making the whole issue moot.

It is unlikely that the decision to move RIOS was made by JP. Let’s face it — JP’s time with the Jays is, effectively, over. This decision came from Beeston, with JP taking the (mild) heat. Once the season is over, a new president will be announced and a new general manager. Unfortunately, it will be the Canadian guy with the Greek name I can’t remember. Nothing against the guy, but with the Jays in the mess they are in, I want a proven commodity in place — not a token Canadian!

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